New Evidence Suggests The UK Government Collaborated With Israel To Crack Down On Speech.

An email suggests that the UK government collaborated with Israel to arrest journalists and activists.

Since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza on Ocotber of 2023, there has been a wave of government crackdowns around the world in an attempt to stop activism and journalism critical of Israel.

One of the most extreme examples is the UK, where numerous journalists and activists have been arrested under “counter terrorism” laws for opposing Israel’s genocide and the UK's funding of it.

Now, new evidence suggests that the UK government is colluding with the Israeli government to crack down on British citizens.

Israeli Interference In UK Court Cases.

For a long time, the Israeli government has attempted to intervene in legal cases against “Palestine Action”, a UK-based activist group which protests Israeli weapons manufacturing plants.

Even before the genocide in Gaza began, reports show that Israel attempted to interfere in British legal cases against Palestine Action activists.

The Guardian reported that “Israeli embassy officials in London attempted to get the attorney general’s office to intervene in UK court cases relating to the prosecution of protesters”.

The Israeli embassy was upset because “Palestine Action activists had been acquitted in the past with human rights defences”.

This interference led to the UK government directly interfering in cases against Palestine Action activists.

A separate article in The Guardian noted that Palestine Action activists have argued that “Internal government documents show that Home Office ministers and staff tried to influence police and prosecutors to crack down on activists targeting the UK factories of an Israeli arms manufacturer”.

Because some of the cases against Palestine Action activists have led to acquittals by judges based on human rights reasons, the UK Home Office -presumably at the request of the Israeli embassy- attempted to interfere to make sure the cases resulted in convictions.

The Guardian reported that

Briefing notes, obtained through freedom of information (FoI) requests by Palestine Action, show details of government meetings, predating the 7 October Hamas attacks and Israel’s response in Gaza, intended to ‘reassure’ Elbit Systems UK, an Israeli arms manufacturer, which is subject to a direct action campaign by the campaign group.

Tim Crosland, a member of the judicial independence group “Defend Our Juries,” said

These disclosures, despite the extensive redaction, are the smoking gun on what has been obvious for a while: the government has been trying to put a stop to juries acquitting those who expose and resist corporate complicity in violations of international law and mass loss of life.

“Such political interference is a national scandal that goes right to the top – the corruption of democracy and the rule of law by those with wealth and power.”

Perhaps even more damning is the fact that the interference was likely done at the behest of Israel, a foreign government, due to the previous reports of Israel interfering in cases related to Palestine Action.

The Guardian noted that prior to this interference, “Home Office ministers attended meetings with Elbit Systems representatives”, Elbit Systems being the Israeli arms manufacturer that “Palestine Action” was targeting.

Pictured Above: A “Palestine Action” protest at an Israeli Weapons Plant.

The Post October 7th Crackdown

Since Israel’s genocide in Gaza began, the UK government began cracking down on protestors on the grounds of “counter terrorism” operations.

On August 13th of 2024, British counter terrorism police charged ten activists with “criminal damage and violent disorder” for disrupting the aforementioned “Elbit” Israeli weapons firm.

At the Time, Amnesty International UK said, “The Crown Prosecution Service’s reference to these alleged offenses having a ‘terrorist connection’ is troubling. Ordinary criminal offenses can be investigated and prosecuted using ordinary criminal procedures, a process that helps ensure that the rights of those accused are properly protected.”

Around the same time, though, something more disturbing began to happen. UK “counterterrorism police” began to raid, arrest, and charge journalists and activists not for property damage but simply for writing articles, making videos, and social media posts that were critical of Israel.

On August 14th of 2024, one of the leading activists from “Palestine Action”, Richard Barnard, was arrested not for any property damage, but for “expressing an opinion that is supportive of a proscribed organisation contrary to section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000”.

For Context, Section 12 of the UK terrorism act makes it a criminal offense to say anything supportive of a “proscribed terrorist organization”.

Because resistance groups against Israel in the Middle East, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, are officially labeled as “terrorists” by the UK, they were able to weaponize this law to label anyone opposed to Israel as supporting Hamas or Hezbollah and therefore charge them under the terrorism act.

On August 18th, the independent British journalist Richard Medhurst was detained and arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport for “expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed (terrorist) organization” for his critical reporting on Israel’s war crimes.

On August 29th, “counterterrorism police “raided the house of Sarah Wilkinson, a prominent pro-Palestinian journalist, and seized her phone, passport, and electronic equipment” , as Declassified UK reported.

Recent evidence strongly suggests that these blatantly anti-free speech arrests were done in coordination with the Israeli embassy in the UK.

On August 28th, the day before the raid on Wilkinson’s home, The Guardian reported that a meeting was held between Nicola Smith, the head of international law at the AGO (Attorney General’s Office) of Britain, and Daniela Grudsky Ekstein, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK.

As the Guardian noted:

A readout of what was discussed at the 28 August meeting between Smith and Grudsky Ekstein was heavily redacted. However, past disclosures have shown apparent requests by the Israeli embassy to the AGO to intervene in individual cases – unspecified due to redactions – and meetings held between the Israeli defence contractor’s representatives and the AGO and Home Office ministers.

This strongly suggests that the raid against Wilkinson was done at the behest of the Israeli government.

A recent bombshell revelation brings even more questions about Israeli interference in these cases.

A heavily redacted email obtained through a FOIA request shows Nicola Smith, the head of international law for the British Attorney General’s Office, sharing the “contact” details of the CPS/SO15 (British counterterrorism police) to Daniela Grudsky Ekstein, the Israeli deputy ambassador to the UK.

The document shows that the Israeli embassy requested “contact details” of the British counterterrorism police, and the UK Attorney General’s Office gave it to them on September 9th of 2024.

This is deeply significant because it shows that the UK Attorney General’s Office shared the contact information of the British counterterrorism police- the body responsible for the cases against Bardnard, Wilkinson, and Medhurst- with the Israeli ambassador to Britain, strongly signaling Israeli interference in the cases.

Dr. Shahd Hammouri, an international lawyer, said to the Guardian that this email “indicates foreign influence”.

Retribution For Reporting.

This email also raises another important question: Was Israel behind the counterterrorism police raid of journalist Asa Whinstanley?

On October 17th of 2024, shortly after the contact information for the British counterterrorism police was shared with the Israeli embassy in Britain, the investigative journalist Asa Winstanley had counterterrorism police “raid his home and seize several electronic devices belonging” to him.

Pictured Above: Investigative Journalist Asa Winstanley.

Asa Winstanley’s outlet, “The Electronic Intifada,” reported that the raid “was connected with the journalist’s social media posts”.

Seven days before the raid, Winstanley had published a lengthy investigation in the Electronic Intifada exposing Israel's use of the “Hannibal Directive” on October 7th, a controversial Israeli military doctrine that calls for Israeli forces to kill their own people to prevent them from being taken hostage.

This fact had previously been reported in the Israeli paper Haaretz and the Australian state-backed outlet ABC News.

Winstanley’s investigation, however, made a new important revelation.

He noted that Israeli media had reported that “70 vehicles” did not reach Gaza due to fire from Israeli helicopters on October 7th.

He noted that there were many reports showing that “Palestinian captors often packed multiple Israeli prisoners into pickup trucks, expropriated cars and even in some cases trailers dragged by tractors”.

He also reported testimony of IDF officials saying they hit “1,000 targets, most of which were inside Israel”.

He noted that “If a hit ‘target’ also includes individual cars, the 1,000 targets hit could have easily resulted in hundreds of dead people.”

In other words, he proved that if cars were packed with multiple hostages, and Israeli forces fired at many cars through the Hannibal directive, this means it is more than likely that Israel killed hundreds of their own people on October 7th.

This timeline raises severe suspicion. Did the Isreali embassy put out a hit on Whinstanley to the counterterrorism police in retribution for him exposing not only a major Isreali war crime, but also for debunking the official narrative used to sustain the genocide in Gaza?

The Israeli embassy certainly had the contact information of the British counterterrorism police when the raid occurred, and the fact that it was timed so closely to Whinstanley’s investigation shows it is very unlikely they are unrelated.

Subsequent Cases

Since the contact details of the counterterrorism police were shared with the Israeli embassy in London, there have been a number of arrests made against activists and journalists under the “terrorism act” for criticizing Israel.

• In November of 2024, a Jewish anti-Zionist activist, Haim Bresheeth, was arrested by counterterrorism police for giving a speech in support of Palestine.

• That same month, Natalie Strecker, a pro-Palestine activist, was charged by counterterrorism police for “inviting support of a proscribed (terrorist) organisation”.

• Along with these two cases, eight more “Palestine Action” activists were charged by the British counterterrorism police.

• In December of 2024, the anti-zionist activist Tony Greenstein was charged under the UK terrorism act for giving a speech in support of Palestine.

• In February of this year, Richard Medhurst had his home and possessions raided in Austria, presumably in coordination with the UK government.

• The Anti-Zionist academic and journalist David Miller was detained at Heathrow airport under the terrorism act this February.

The obvious question around all these cases is: did the Israeli embassy direct the UK counterterrorism police to make all of these arrests, raids, and detentions to crack down on pro-Palestine activism and speech?

The fact that these bogus cases ramped up shortly after the Israeli embassy was in contact with British counterterrorism police means the answer is more than likely yes.

A Backroom Deal?

An interesting thing in the timeline of this story that journalist Matt Kennard noted is the fact that “UK government secretly handed the Israelis contact details of prosecutors and police handling the Palestine Action case on 9 September 2024, 7 days after the same government announced it would suspend 30 weapons licences to Israel (window dressing)”.

Kennard asked, “Was it a quid pro quo?”.

As Richard Medhurst noted, the British Attorney General Richard Hermer came under fire for refusing to implement a minimal arms sale ban on weapons to Israel (a purely symbolic action given that it only banned “30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel”).

As Medhurst said:

The Israelis probably threw a tantrum, and since the attorney general seems to be sympathetic towards Zionism, well, it makes you wonder, is it possible that the British government arrested me and other critics of Israel as compensation for cutting off a few weapons to Israel? Did they do this to placate and appease the Israelis? It’s not difficult to imagine, is it?

A Huge Foreign Interference Scandal

The mainstream media often writes an endless array of articles fear-mongering over “foreign interference”.

But here, there is proof that the Israeli government is directly communicating with British counterterrorism police, and likely pushing to arrest British citizens for speech.

Unfortunately, because it is Israel doing the interference, this important story is likely to be ignored.

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